Grant Dermody

LITC 524

Professional Resource Review

5/11/03

The Case Against Standardized Testing, by Alfie Kohn, Heinemann Publishing, 2000

Standardized Testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole. Of course on the late, late show no one ever insists that the monster is really doing us a favor by making its victims more accountable.

This is how Alfie Kohn opens his small, but intense treatise against standardized testing.

Kohn starts the book by exploring why standardized testing exists and why it has gained so much power. He compares testing in the United States to testing in other countries (few countries give formal tests to kids below the age of sixteen). He then explores the different types of tests currently given, shows the varied roles of teachers, administrators, and the press in testing, why poor kids and kids of color do poorly on the tests, gives several alternatives to testing, and suggests viable ways to fight the tests.

Kohn’s book is written in question and answer format. He appears to be playing devils’ advocate with himself. His writing is persuasive. He shows the arguments for testing, and refutes them methodically, one by one.

This is an excellent book for any teacher. It isn’t aimed at a particular grade level, Kohn feels that we all are affected by testing, whether our kids take them or not. Testing is part of a bigger picture; a more insidious infiltration into our classrooms and our lives, and it won’t stop unless we act.

Essential beliefs:

Ø It’s easier to measure efficiency than effectiveness, easier to rate how well we we’re doing something than to ask if what we’re doing makes sense.

Ø Tests should never be multiple choice, timed, given frequently or to young kids, or norm referenced.

Ø There are much more effective ways of assessing children.

Ø Testing is a force of politics and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed.

Golden Lines:

Ø “It’s not just that the tests are often ridiculously hard; it’s that they’re simply ridiculous. They don’t capture what most of us, upon reflection, would say it means to be a well-educated person.”

Ø “’I know this sounds very bizarre, but you could put a number on these things without actually reading the paper,’ said this scorer, who, like his coworkers was offered a two hundred dollar bonus that kicked in after eight thousand papers.”

Ø “Because those who are leaving, (teaching, because of testing) include some of the best….the paradoxical result….is that the tougher standards movement has the effect of lowering standards.

Ø “The only thing at which standardized tests are uniquely efficient is pitting one school, or state, against another.”

For more information see www.alfiekohn.org